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Senate Votes to Confirm Todd Blanche as U.S. Attorney General; Trump's Top General Looking for Off-Ramp from Iran War; Thai Teen Kills Five Teachers in School Shooting; U.S. Economy Loses 23,000 Jobs in July; Trump Illegally Constructing White House Ballroom; U.S. Senate Panel Recommends Contempt Charges for Dr. Anthony Fauci; South Carolina Republicans Set for Tuesday's Special Primary; Amanda Knox Comedy Show Faces Backlash; AI Creates Viruses from Scratch. Aired 5- 6a ET

Aired August 08, 2026 - 05:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE (voice-over): This is CNN breaking news.

SALMA ABDELAZIZ, CNN ANCHOR AND CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Hello and a very warm welcome to our viewers joining us in the United States and all around the world. I'm Salma Abdelaziz here in London.

You're now looking at live pictures of Capitol Hill, where we begin with breaking news this hour.

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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: On this vote, the yeas are 50. The nays are 49. The nomination is confirmed.

ABDELAZIZ (voice-over): Just moments ago, the U.S. Senate confirming Todd Blanche as attorney general by a single vote after so much uncertainty. One holdout, Louisiana senator Bill Cassidy, made the final difference.

Republicans needed his vote after senators Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski said they would not vote for Blanche, who was one of president Trump's personal lawyers and has been acting attorney general since April.

Now Murkowski cited what she called the administration's weaponization of the Justice Department. Now senator Cassidy had previously expressed very similar concerns and pointed to a probe into a former White House aide, who was a key witness in the congressional investigation of the January 6th Capitol attacks.

However, Cassidy now says it's not a matter of one issue over the other but rather who can handle the job the best.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

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SEN. BILL CASSIDY (R-LA): Mr. Blanche is not perfect and he will tell you this but the choice is not between perfection and Mr. Blanche. It is between Mr. Blanche and another acting attorney general who may not run the department effectively.

This is not a referendum on President Trump. It is a decision regarding Mr. Blanche in very specific circumstances.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ABDELAZIZ: Shortly before that, at around 4:00 in the morning, the Senate passed a bill that extends government funding to December 11th. The deadline was September 30th. However, this bill differs from a House version in a few key ways, including a lack of funding for both ICE and Customs and Border Protection.

And this came in just a few moments ago. The Senate has failed to advance a stand-alone voter ID bill before leaving for their five-week recess. The bill needed 60 votes to advance. It only got 52, with Democrats roundly rejecting it as they had last time the measure was voted on as an amendment.

Republicans demanded a vote on the bill in a nod to president Trump's very controversial elections package known as the Save America Act.

For viewers in the U.S., we're going to have a lot more on both of these stories next hour on "CNN THIS MORNING."

I want to go now to what is a very frank assessment by America's top general, whose very job it is to fight the war with Iran. General Dan Caine, he is the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, is looking for an off- ramp in the conflict as U.S. military options are limited.

Three sources familiar with the matter say that Caine has privately made clear to other top Trump officials, cabinet members and top advisers over the last few weeks that military options on the table to escalate the conflict could backfire and that airpower alone is unlikely to achieve President Trump's stated objectives for the war.

Now, of course, this is very significant that Trump's most senior general is privately, privately arguing there's no military solution here to end a war that the president chose to enter.

In the meanwhile, the leaders of Saudi Arabia, Turkiye and Pakistan signed a NATO-style mutual defense pact in Mecca on Friday. This is, of course, as the Iran war looms over the region. The agreement says that an attack on one of them is an attack against all of them.

The pact gave Saudi Arabia a very powerful new layer of protection amid doubts over whether the U.S. can still be relied upon to protect its allies. For more on all of this, we are now joined by Nada Bashir here in London.

Good morning to you. So a NATO-style defense agreement signed between Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Turkiye, of course. [05:05:00]

Is this a sign that these countries now feel that the U.S. military is incapable of providing that level of security?

And all of this is happening as we're hearing from America's top brass, that it wants out of this war.

What are you learning?

NADA BASHIR, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, there are certainly mounting questions as to the extent of the ability of the Trump administration, the U.S. military, to not only carry out this war in Iran successfully but also to protect its allies in the region.

As you mentioned, we have been hearing from sources, at least three sources, with regards to that frank assessment from the Trump administration's top general, Dan Caine, assessing that the current military options on the table might be somewhat limited.

According to the sources, this assessment was focused on the fact that the military options on the table to escalate this conflict with Iran could actually backfire and impact the U.S. more negatively. And also, of course, an assessment that the options on the table with regards to airpower alone.

So focusing on carrying out strikes and that aerial assault campaign that we have seen on Iran over the last few months, that this would not necessarily be enough to achieve the Trump administration's express end goal here.

And, of course, from the outset of this war, the Trump administration, president Trump himself, had been clear that the U.S. believed that they had already successfully decimated Iran's military capabilities, that this is a war that would only last some weeks, perhaps.

But clearly that has not been the case. And there has been some questions, according to sources and officials familiar with these discussions going on behind the scenes around the Trump administration, the U.S. military's military capabilities and its weapons stockpiles as well.

And it is not just president Trump's top general, Dan Caine, who has reportedly raised these concerns to senior cabinet officials, including the CIA director, including the vice president JD Vance, as well as secretary of state Marco Rubio.

But it's also Gulf leaders as well, who have also been sounding the alarm around the stockpile of U.S. defense systems used by America's Gulf allies in the last few months to defend itself against, of course, the ongoing threat of Iranian drone and missile attacks.

And that is something that we have seen being employed by the Iranian regime, by the IRGC as a key tactic and tool in targeting the United States, by targeting U.S. military bases in the Gulf region and also, of course, by targeting civilian infrastructure in the Gulf region. And for many Gulf leaders, this is not a sustainable status quo at

this stage, particularly when it comes to the potential for further attacks against civilian infrastructure.

And this all comes, of course, as well as we continue to see diplomatic efforts somewhat underway between Iran and Oman trying to establish some agreement to allow for the safe passage of vessels through the Strait of Hormuz.

That has, of course, been the key stumbling block in past peace efforts between the U.S. and Iran. So whether potentially this agreement, if it comes to pass, shifts the needle somewhat, perhaps sets the stage for further negotiations between the U.S. and Iran and perhaps offers that off-ramp that it appears the U.S. military is now looking for.

ABDELAZIZ: Iran and Oman potentially close to an agreement but very little progress on talks between Iran and the United States, as you know. Nada Bashir there. Thank you so much for those updates.

U.S. intelligence believes Russian president Vladimir Putin could try to test NATO's resolve in the years ahead. Three sources familiar with the intelligence reports say that U.S. officials believe he could launch a limited, hostile action against a NATO country.

Now this could range from a cyber attack to a small scale incursion without necessarily crossing that threshold for a full throated response. The goal would be to test NATO's commitment to Article V, which says an attack on one member is an attack on all. One source says the most likely targets would be Baltic countries or Poland.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement will give officers body cameras. This is going to be in the coming weeks. In a statement Friday, ICE said its agents should have the equipment by the end of September.

But it also said the agency will maintain broad control over the release of any body cam footage. The statement said ICE will promptly release video of shootings in which its agents caused death or serious injury but only after determining whether, quote, "it is in the best interests of the agency."

The move comes after several fatal shootings this year by ICE agents.

People in Thailand are in mourning. This is a day after the country's deadliest school shooting in years.

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Police say the 14-year-old suspected shooter stormed the school, where he was a student and opened fire on Friday. Five teachers were killed and 30 other people were injured. The boy then shot himself and later died.

Police say the shooter allegedly killed his grandparents in the home that he shared with them before he went on his shooting rampage at the school. We're joined now by CNN's Ivan Watson. He is in Bangkok.

Ivan, give us a sense of where you are right now.

What are you seeing around you and what support is being offered to families a day after this tragedy now?

IVAN WATSON, CNN ANCHOR AND SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Salma, I'm actually in the province north of Bangkok. It's kind of an extended suburb of the massive city right outside the gates of the Debsirin Nonthaburi school.

And so now it's more than 24 hours since this rampage and people have started to bring flowers here, to bring drinks as well, to show their respect for really just an act of violence that has devastated this community here.

Some 3,000 students, boys and girls, studied at this school. And it's one of the students, a 14-year old, that the authorities have accused of coming in here and opening fire on teachers and students before ultimately turning the weapon on himself.

Now we've learned more about the victims here, at least five teachers who were killed, including a deputy director of the school and an administrative staff member, a guidance teacher, a math teacher and a Thai language teacher.

The school has put out a statement that I think is very touching, saying that, with deepest condolences, though, you have departed this from this world, your goodness and virtue and your spirit as a teacher will remain in our memories forever.

There's a forensics foundation that has been releasing the bodies of the victims for funeral services. And so that process, that grieving, has now begun as people say goodbye to loved ones, innocents that were cut down in a morning of unspeakable violence.

The prime minister of Thailand has spoken more about this incident, these killings. Let's take a listen to what he had to say.

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ANUTIN CHARNVIRAKUL, THAI PRIME MINISTER: This is -- it is a violence but it is not caused by criminals. It is caused by an individual who had carried a lot of treasures and tensions. This really has nothing to do with security measures in the school.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WATSON: So I mean -- and now we're in this period where people are still very much in shock.

Students are communicating amongst themselves and with their parents and trying to make sense of this and how it is possible that a fellow student could have -- could have turned on not only the teachers who were entrusted with protecting and guiding and educating these young boys and girls but also on their fellow students. It's a -- it's a phenomenon that is being felt around far too many

countries around the world and has been felt here in Thailand as well.

This is not the first time of a deadly mass shooting, a mass attack on a school in this country. It's raising questions about treatment of mental illness, raising questions about gun safety in this country as well, questions that the survivors of this violence will be grappling with for some time to come, Salma.

ABDELAZIZ: Ivan Watson there on the grieving right at the school gates. And I remember, Ivan, I know you said it's 3,000 students and staff but our producer, Karla Cripps, described it as a very tight knit community now in mourning. Thank you so much for that update.

The president's efforts to remake the White House and construct his ballroom are well underway. But a federal court has ruled that he does not have the authority to make certain changes.

And the U.S. Justice Department is looking at possibly charging Dr. Anthony Fauci with a contempt charge. Reaction from the medical community on Fauci's post-pandemic legal troubles when we come back.

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ABDELAZIZ: The latest U.S. jobs report is raising concerns about the overall health of the economy. In July, the U.S. unexpectedly lost 23,000 jobs. Economists had actually expected to gain 95,000 jobs. Some good news is that the unemployment rate fell to 4.1 percent. So that's down from 4.2 percent.

But a CNN analysis finds that the rate fell because people gave up looking for jobs altogether. The report also shows signs that employers are becoming more cautious when hiring.

A federal appeals court ruled on Friday that president Trump's massive new ballroom is being constructed unlawfully. The court said only Congress has the authority to make such major changes to the White House, not the president. CNN's Kristen Holmes has more for us.

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KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: President Trump is vowing to bring his ballroom project all the way to the Supreme Court after an appeals court ordered them to halt their construction on the project without congressional approval.

Now in a lengthy screed on Truth Social, president Trump talked about national security and almost didn't mention the ballroom at all, instead pinning this on safety. He said that two Obama and Biden appellate court judges just voted

against the desperately needed military center -- he's referring to the ballroom -- required for the national security of Washington, D.C., and our country itself.

He goes on to say the decision has been stayed. And just for your note, the court itself stayed their own decision.

[05:20:02]

It gave them two weeks to appeal this to the Supreme Court, says that they'll be immediately appealing.

Then he goes on to say the military and Secret Service are viewing this horrendous, politically motivated and unlawful ruling as a national security threat to our nation in that the entire complex is being built for the protection of our country and, additionally, all future presidents.

Now I did talk to a number of White House sources tonight, asking, what is plan B here?

What if the Supreme Court doesn't actually take this up?

Or what if the Supreme Court does and rules against president Trump?

And I was told, at this point, there's not a lot of conversations happening around plan B, that these legal advisors at the White House believe that they are on solid ground. They believe the Supreme Court is not only going to take this case up but will rule in president Trump's favor.

Now no one could tell me exactly why, what was giving this level of confidence. But right now they say they are still confident. One thing is clear, president Trump is doubling down on this. He will do anything to get this ballroom built.

And there is a large question here, overall, what happens if the Supreme Court rules against this?

Right now, there's just a large gaping hole on the White House.

Is this something that Congress is going to have to get behind because of what is happening at the people's house?

But right now, the biggest issue is getting that appeal to the Supreme Court and seeing what they decide to do next -- Kristen Holmes, CNN, the White House.

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ABDELAZIZ: Staying with president Trump, he is calling on U.S. attorney Jeanine Pirro to revisit her decision to drop vandalism charges related to the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool. Former Olympian David Hearn was previously charged with vandalizing the pool. Now Pirro dropped the charges, saying the $14 million renovation

project was botched. Trump says Pirro's decision was hasty. He continues to insist that vandals damaged the landmark.

The U.S. Justice Department has now received a criminal referral for one of America's top infectious disease experts. It comes from the Senate committee that voted to hold Dr. Anthony Fauci in contempt of Congress.

The former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self- incrimination more than 100 times to avoid testifying about the federal response to the COVID-19 pandemic. He called the hearing an attempt to try to put him behind bars.

Instead of sending the resolution to the full Senate for a vote, committee chair Rand Paul sent it directly to the DOJ. He recommended they charge Fauci with contempt of Congress. Now Fauci has been pardoned by President Biden from charges pertaining to any comments made in previous years.

I'm joined now from Hawaii with how the medical community is reacting to the contempt resolution. We have Dr. Scott Miscovich, president and CEO of the Premier Medical Group Hawaii/USA.

Good morning, first of all, to you. Thank you so much for joining us. I just want to begin by taking a step back here if I can.

I'm struggling to understand how a man who helped lead, a doctor who helped lead America through one of America's most devastating and deadly public health emergencies, is now gone from being that country's prominent scientific adviser to facing congressional contempt proceedings and the possibility of prosecution.

Can you explain to me how we got here?

DR. SCOTT MISCOVICH, PRESIDENT AND CEO, PREMIER MEDICAL GROUP HAWAII/USA: It is just incredible to me to even think that we're sitting here right now.

I mean, Dr. Fauci is 85 years old. He first started serving Ronald Reagan and he has served every president since then. And since his time, he has made major contributions to not only the country but to the world with HIV, Ebola and the list could go on, of everything that he has done.

Then we were hit by the pandemic. We had president Trump in office and basically he was the one person, the medical community and I think most of the country, especially in the beginning, listened to for sound advice.

So from my perspective -- and I have colleagues all over the world and throughout the country and I -- and I traveled all over the country and dedicated four years of my life and had 2,400 employees fighting COVID.

So we saw many Americans face to face. Dr. Fauci, you know, was the most respected person by us, the incredible medical community.

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And I think most of the people in the world, until the whole event became political.

ABDELAZIZ: And, of course, there are legitimate questions to ask about decisions made during the pandemic. I think all of us are curious as to why things happened, the way they happened.

But how do we distinguish genuine accountability here from an effort to criminalize scientific judgments during an unprecedented crisis, when what we had was what we had in terms of information?

MISCOVICH: Yes, there is -- there is absolutely no reason to be thinking, to, quote, "criminalize" what Dr. Fauci did. You know, if we all think back, as it gets further away, you know, most people don't want to think about it anymore because of the crisis that it was.

But remember, we came on to this crisis in early 2000. And, you know, I will admit I wasn't always 100 percent behind what Dr. Fauci said. And I spent many, many shows on CNN talking about it.

And yet, at the same time, he basically brought together other experts within the country and he got a consensus opinion. And he basically gave America comfort and the medical profession to say, you know, this is how we should be proceeding.

Now that decision became very political when we had, first, Operation Light Speed to form the first vaccination, because then you had the first big political separation in the country when it came to the anti-vaxxers and then the rest of the country.

So then you had, in the same period of time, the decision for the country to go on lockdown, another big political divide that occurred. And it is at that point that we started to see red state versus blue state starting to appear.

And we saw the leaders politically trying to steal the microphone when we needed someone like Dr. Fauci to have the microphone, to try to speak from years of experience and say it in a voice that was other than president Trump at the time saying, inject IV detergent to kill it.

Or to say things like take hydroxychloroquine, which we know, was ineffective and some studies showed that it led to an additional 12,000 or more Americans dying because of listening to that advice.

So we are sitting here right now retrospectively and watching Rand Paul go after this person for absolutely no reason except the discussion of where was the origin of the virus.

Well, you know what?

We don't know. None of us know right now. And that is what Dr. Fauci was fighting. He was fighting to help the country. ABDELAZIZ: And taking a step back here because you're talking about

all of these key moments in which the decisions became political as you said. And I'm sure you have sensed this politicization of health and medicine in your field and in your space.

What has that done to Americans' trust in doctors and scientists, particularly when you think about the possibility of the next health emergency?

MISCOVICH: Wow. That's a -- that's a terrific question. And if you want to talk about our trust as medical experts and physicians in general across the country, we really have lost it, especially now in this second term of Trump because of what's the first thing he does?

He comes in and guts research, right. And goes in and guts different locations within the CDC and in the infectious disease world. He basically forced them to cancel a major study that came out in one of our major journals because they didn't like what it said. That's what we're facing right now.

We're facing a muzzle being put on the truth about everything that's going on. And now look at the look at the dire real illness that's going across the country. And it's something that, in another time period when we had full funding to, you know, the experts out there in public health, this wouldn't be happening right now.

So all of us are concerned about the current administration taking the microphone and only saying things that support their position.

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And, you know, supporting against immunizations, whether it's in our children or in our schools or, God forbid, we have another major infectious disease because we'll all be at risk. And we all feel that right now that we are all at risk because of this current administration.

And again, there isn't a Dr. Fauci sitting in any position that, you know, we could -- we could all trust.

ABDELAZIZ: Dr. Scott Miscovich there, you really painted an image when you said a muzzle being put on the truth of the medical community. Thank you so much for bringing us that reaction.

MISCOVICH: Thank you. Any time.

ABDELAZIZ: Above average temperatures and a new round of gusty winds are affecting fire crews battling multiple wildfires in the Pacific Northwest. Three fires near Spokane, Washington, have scorched more than 10,000 acres. That's over 4,000 hectares.

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ABDELAZIZ: The candidates to be Michigan's next senator are making their appeal to voters. Still to come, we're going to speak to a reporter from the "Detroit Free Press" about the campaigns of Abdul El-Sayed and Mike Rogers.

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ABDELAZIZ (voice-over): Welcome back. I'm Salma Abdelaziz. Let's check some of today's top stories.

A short time ago, the U.S. Senate voted to confirm Todd Blanche as attorney general. The vote was 50-49, with two Republicans joining Democrats to vote no. Blanche had been the acting attorney general since April. He has been accused of weaponizing the Justice Department for president Trump's political purposes.

And U.S. intelligence believes Russia may try to test NATO's resolve in the coming years. According to three sources, president Vladimir Putin may be planning a limited hostile action against a NATO country. It could be anything from a cyber attack to a small scale incursion but it would be small enough not to necessarily trigger a full response.

A federal appeals court ruled Friday that president Trump is unlawfully constructing a massive new ballroom at the White House. The court said only Congress has the authority to make major changes to the White House. The president said he plans to appeal that decision.

Democrats in Michigan are now putting on a display of unity. This is following a very bruising primary there. The party came together at a rally on Friday night for Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed. Among those in attendance was potential 2020 presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg. El-Sayed took aim at his Republican opponent, Mike Rogers.

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ABDUL EL-SAYED (D-MI), U.S. SENATE NOMINEE: Now I'm up against a guy named Mike Rogers. And Mike Rogers, well, he's decided that he wants to focus on my name, my 11-letter first name.

Now Mike, I'm just going to remind you, if you don't know how to say the name, keep the name out your damn mouth.

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ABDELAZIZ: Both Abdul El-Sayed and Rogers are trying to win the seat held by Democrat Gary Peters, who is retiring. Rogers is reaching across the aisle and trying to encourage Democrats to vote for him.

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MIKE ROGERS (R-MI), U.S. SENATE NOMINEE: The vast majority of people across Michigan who do not want to throw their support behind a campaign filled with anger, divisiveness, calls for violence and the views that are out of touch with your values. Well, you have a home with us.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ABDELAZIZ: South Carolina is set to hold a special election Tuesday. This is for a new Republican Senate candidate after the death, of course, of Lindsey Graham last month. His sister, Darline, who has never served in public office, was appointed to fill his seat through the end of the current Congress.

But now she's actually seeking the GOP nomination and a full term. And that has prompted some backlash. Dianne Gallagher reports.

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DIANNE GALLAGHER, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): As candidates look for a way to stand out in the crowded race to replace the late Lindsey Graham on the ballot --

MARK SANFORD (R-SC), U.S. SENATE CANDIDATE: Pig math doesn't work for any of us as taxpayers.

GALLAGHER (voice-over): -- with just days to go.

RUSSELL FRY (R-SC), U.S. SENATE CANDIDATE: We'll see you at the polls on August 11th.

GALLAGHER (voice-over): Republicans in Charleston packed a private club to hear from most of the GOP Senate hopefuls.

RALPH NORMAN (R-SC), U.S. SENATE CANDIDATE: We are getting ready to elect a person for the next six years.

[05:40:00]

GALLAGHER (voice-over): While there are 10 Republicans on the ballot, five are seen as top contenders.

Senator Darline Graham, Congressman Ralph Norman and Russell Fry, former Governor Mark Sanford and businessman Mark Lynch. The splintered field means it's unlikely one person will get a majority on August 11th, which would lead to a runoff between the top two vote getters two weeks later.

KYLE SIMS, SOUTH CAROLINA REPUBLICAN VOTER: I'm really kind of looking at a couple of the top candidates and see what they have to say about particular issues.

GALLAGHER (voice-over): Missing from the stage in Charleston?

President Donald Trump's endorsed candidate, Darline Graham, whose campaign says has been busy in Washington with her new job in the U.S. Senate.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Please raise your right hand. GALLAGHER (voice- over): Republicans here were largely supportive of the president's push for Graham, who had not previously held elected office, to finish out her older brother's current Senate term.

SEN. DARLINE GRAHAM (R-SC): I'm here today because I'm answering President Trump's call to serve.

My late brother Lindsey --

GALLAGHER (voice-over): But her decision to campaign for the full term has left some of her rivals up in arms.

MARK LYNCH (R-SC), U.S. SENATE CANDIDATE: Queen Darline, she was only at one debate and she had to have her notes there and read from it. She's just not qualified.

FRY: What I hear from voters is no one knows who she is or what she's about. I've actually worked to pass bills and craft things and build coalitions.

GALLAGHER (voice-over): Graham's opponents claim she's running a curated campaign based only on the Trump endorsement.

GRAHAM: I completely support the president's agenda. I'm 100 percent behind him.

GALLAGHER (voice-over): Although those who didn't get the nod do still tout their own Trump alignment.

FRY: Everybody who runs in Republican Party politics would love to have the president's endorsement. But I think beyond that, too, it's important to have a working relationship with the president. I think that's what I, you know, what I carry with me.

GALLAGHER (voice-over): And while Trump's backing launched Graham into frontrunner status, the president's recent endorsement scorecard in South Carolina isn't without blemishes, with his initial choice in the governor's race losing in a primary runoff after he also endorsed her rival. Voters here seem less likely to take an endorsement as a mandate.

MARY ANNE TAYLOR, SOUTH CAROLINA REPUBLICAN VOTER: I give him credit for being a smart man but I'm a smart woman. His endorsement did not mean anything or sway me in any way. Like I said, I do my own research and my own homework.

GALLAGHER: Senator Darline Graham announced that president Trump is going to hold a primary eve telerally for her on Monday. Nearly every candidate, including Graham, is scheduled to make campaign stops throughout the state over the weekend.

The math tells us that this almost inevitably will go to a runoff. In fact, the South Carolina Republican Party has already scheduled a debate for the top two vote-getters one week after the primary. The eventual Republican nominee will go on to face the Democratic candidate, pediatrician Andy Andrews -- back to you.

(END VIDEOTAPE) ABDELAZIZ: Amanda Knox is facing a wave of criticism. This is ahead

of her sold-out comedy show at the Edinburgh Fringe festival. Why the family of her murdered roommate is petitioning for its cancellation. That's ahead on CNN.

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ABDELAZIZ: Sri Lanka police fired tear gas after inmates attempted to break through parts of a prison facility. Officials say three prisoners were killed and dozens more were injured. Sri Lanka's prison system is criticized for overcrowding.

More than 41,000 inmates are held in facilities designed for just about 11,000 people. Many of those detained are simply awaiting trial. Officials say they plan to extend superior court judges' terms on the bench to try to reduce that backlog of more than 1 million court cases.

Amanda Knox, the American student that was convicted and later acquitted of her roommate's murder in Italy, is facing a new wave of backlash. She's set to perform a stand-up comedy show at the Edinburgh Fringe festival.

And the family of her murdered roommate, Meredith Kercher, are calling for it to be canceled. CNN's Ivana Scatola has more for us from Scotland.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

IVANA SCATOLA, CNN SUPERVISING PRODUCER: Amanda Knox is now doing standup comedy about the murder case that made her famous. The American woman who spent years in prison before being acquitted of the 2007 murder of her British roommate Meredith Kercher is performing here at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

AMANDA KNOX, AUTHOR AND COMEDIAN: I'm not the first person to invent using comedy to talk about traumatic and difficult material.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCATOLA: The show, which is called "Cartwheel," is sold out for all 11 days of its run. It's billed as, "a woman approaching 40, juggling motherhood and finally getting around to being furious about the whole wrongful imprisonment thing, especially when half the world is telling her to get over it while the other half still thinks she's guilty."

The show sparked backlash particularly for Meredith Kercher's sister, who told the BBC the case shouldn't be turned into a comedy. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

STEPHANIE KERCHER, MEREDITH KERCHER'S SISTER: I think in this case, it's a position where it's not a generic topic. It's targeting an individual traumatic case and an individual person and family. And I feel very strongly that Meredith wouldn't agree with that.

Our family's pain is immense. I can't explain to you how much pain our family have been through. And also, we're talking two decades later now.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCATOLA: There's also a petition online to cancel the show, which has received at least 9,000 signatures. Kercher was found stabbed to death in the apartment she shared with Knox in Perugia, Italy in 2007.

Knox and her then boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, were convicted of Kercher's murder and sexual assault and spent nearly four years in prison before being released by the appeals court in Perugia in 2011. Italy's highest court acquitted them in 2015.

Another man, Rudy Hermann Guede, was later convicted of murder after his DNA was found at the crime scene. He was released in 2021 after serving most of his 16-year prison sentence.

Knox has defended the show saying it's really about motherhood and how one day she'll have to explain everything that happened to her in Italy to her daughter. She also says the show honors Meredith Kutch's memory.

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KNOX: I would hope that people will honestly engage with my work and recognize, like, the deep heart and sensitivity that I bring to it.

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SCATOLA: The venue hosting the show, Gilded Balloon, told CNN that as fringe venue, it provides a platform for a wide range of voices, in line with the festival's long standing commitment to freedom of expression.

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ABDELAZIZ: It could be a breakthrough for medical research and the fight against diseases. AI has now created completely new viruses. A look at the potential for good and evil just ahead.

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(MUSIC PLAYING) ABDELAZIZ: Scientists have now created new viruses from scratch. This

is using AI. It could set the stage for medical advancements that may save lives. Hadas Gold looks at whether there's any reason to fear what could be done with this technology.

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HADAS GOLD, CNN AI CORRESPONDENT: These scientists from Stanford University and the Arc Institute, they created their own AI model called Evo, that's trained on DNA sequences.

They trained it to recognize patterns of DNA that exist in nature and then to use that data to write recipes for entirely new viruses.

This is exactly the type of job that AI is best suited for. It's really good at looking at tons and tons of data, learning about it, figuring out the patterns that exist there and then creating new patterns.

And so through this, they were able to create 16 new viruses out of hundreds and thousands that they actually created but 16 new viruses that actually work, that have never existed before in nature.

One of those viruses actually, they found, was evolutionarily related to the viruses they were working at, meaning that potentially in millions of years, nature would have eventually created that virus.

So in a way, they sped up nature by millions of years and created this new virus. And this program does this so much faster than scientists would normally be able to do by hand. So there's good things and bad things that can come out of this.

Good is, of course, medical advancements.

[05:55:00]

These scientists were specifically studying E. coli and these types of pathogens that could help combat E. coli, especially as certain things become more resistant to antibiotics. We need to find new ways to combat these sorts of diseases and bacteria that we have out there.

Of course, the potential bad is that you don't want bad actors to get their hands on these tools and what they could create. You don't want bad actors to create new viruses.

Now scientists do say that this isn't something you really need to worry about, because it is much easier just to take an existing virus that already exists out there in nature. And, you know, if you wanted to create a bioweapon, just spread that virus around or modify an existing virus.

So they say that the idea of bad actors creating wholly new viruses that never existed before, that's something to not really worry about right now. But, of course, just like with anything with AI, there's very good things that can come out of it and sometimes bad things. But if you are interested in creating your own new viruses, you can do

so because the scientists have made Evo, this AI model, open source, free of charge. Anyone can go download it and design new genomes themselves -- Hadas Gold, CNN, New York.

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ABDELAZIZ: Now to a couple of dogs that are unlike any other ones on Earth. Bailey, the beagle, and his brother, Alfie, have been genetically engineered to not produce dander; you know, those irritating flakes of dead skin that trigger watery eyes, runny noses and sneezing in humans.

Well, the company that figured it out is led, I guess you can guess it, by a man who has terrible dog allergies. And he always wanted a puppy of his own. He now says that Bailey is like a member of his own family and Alfie has gone to a home in Florida.

Thank you so much for watching. I'm Salma Abdelaziz. For our viewers in North America, "CNN THIS MORNING" is coming up next. For the rest of the world, it will be "AFRICAN VOICES PLAYMAKERS."